Photoshop CS3 vs Photoshop Elements

[Ken Cox]

irfanview rules

some of us are not privy to handouts from the big companies

ken

[Barry Beckham]

Conflow

Well, it healthy to disagree, but experience around the clubs tells me a different story. While in theory I wouldn't argue with your views, but I am a realist and it ain't happening out there as you see it.

I don't follow your point here "I do believe that PTE is 'shareware' thank god"

Ken

Most users don't require a handout because they have a pirate copy.

[Ed Overstreet]

Getting back to the original topic, the comparison between CS3 and Elements (especially the new Elements 6).

A long-time user of full versions of Photoshop, who recently upgraded to CS3, I am increasingly of the opinion that I wasted my money on the upgrade. I recently installed the trial version of Elements 6 on my laptop, after making a complete list of all the things that I actually do in CS3 (and in Nikon Capture NX, which in my opinion is a much better RAW editor than CameraRAW and in which I probably do about 75% of my editing anyway not in Photoshop). The list of things that I would miss if I only had Elements 6 to work with is very, very thin, and the things I would miss I could work around easily enough in Elements 6 or in Capture NX. The combined (full, non-upgrade) price of those two programs in Canada is about the same as what I paid for my CS3 upgrade, and is about 1/3 of what you'll pay for a full-price purchase of CS3.

I posted a summary of what I found in my club's web forum. A member of my club replied to my post, appending the link below, which is I think an excellent summary of why for probably the majority of photographers (certainly of amateurs, even serious ones like me), really could be quite happy with Elements 6. As my colleague summarized the somewhat lengthy post in the link below, "yes you can use a Rolls Royce to do the grocery shopping, if you have the money, but what's the point?" The full article makes a lot of very good points, with which I fully agree.

Check it out:

http://www.graphic-design.com/Photoshop/vs_elements.html

[Lin Evans]

Hi Guys,

I think the real point is that what a person chooses to use for Photo editing, etc., will depend ultimately on their purpose and audience. As a professional I use a wide variety of products including Photoshop, Elements, PixBuilder, Picture Window Pro, IrfanView, etc. I use Elements because I was tired of Adobe forcing me to upgrade Photoshop just to get the latest iteration of Adobe Camera Raw (Elements is much cheaper and offers the same). I use Picture Windows Pro because earlier versions of Photoshop didn't provide for removing Chromatic Aberration and PWP has long had one of the finest algorithms for that purpose. I use PixBuilder Studio because it's small, tight code which doesn't take a lot of room on my notebook's meager hard disk and for creating PNG objects and much of the preparation work I do for PTE shows it's equal to Photoshop in every way.

To users who are first learning to manipulate graphics and photos, learning Photoshop is a daunting task. All the terms which we who have been in this game for years take for granted such as levels, curves, layers and such are a complete mystery to the beginner. We have strayed a bit from the OP's question which is whether to buy Photoshop CS3 or Elements 6. My answer to that simple question is that unless you absolutely need the additional features of CS3 I would definitely recomment Elements. But if all you need is basic photo manipulations, don't need to convert RAW to jpg, etc., and need primarily the ability to create PNG objects and do basic photo manipulations don't overlook PixBuilder Studio which is a true bargain in today's market.

Best regards,

Lin

[Snowbound]

Thanks all....think I've got it

Ford, Chevy, Toyota, Jeep??

Depends on where I want to go, how I want to get there and my driving skills.

Ciao for now...

[Prouddad]

I didn't see too many differences between the two programs for an amateur until a guy recently told me that Elements cannot use the all important clone tool on 16 bit images. You must first convert to 8 bits, and lose a bunch of data in the process.

Let's say you've got this great picture that you shot RAW, or a negative that you scanned as a big tiff file and the picture has a little problem like dust on your sensor or on the scan that must be fixed. He said that In Elements you can only fix this by first converting to 8 bit. Doing this you will lose detail in shadow and highlight areas.

He said that he didn't really fully realize this until he starting scanning b+w negs and noticed a big difference in shadow detail of images he had converted to 8 bit in order clone out a few dust spots.

Was he doing something wrong to get that reduction of quality or do you believe his explanation to be true?

[cjdnzl]

I didn't see too many differences between the two programs for an amateur until a guy recently told me that Elements cannot use the all important clone tool on 16 bit images. You must first convert to 8 bits, and lose a bunch of data in the process.

Let's say you've got this great picture that you shot RAW, or a negative that you scanned as a big tiff file and the picture has a little problem like dust on your sensor or on the scan that must be fixed. He said that In Elements you can only fix this by first converting to 8 bit. Doing this you will lose detail in shadow and highlight areas.

He said that he didn't really fully realize this until he starting scanning b+w negs and noticed a big difference in shadow detail of images he had converted to 8 bit in order clone out a few dust spots.

Was he doing something wrong to get that reduction of quality or do you believe his explanation to be true?

If you convert a raw image to 16-bit, you will actually have a 12-bit image, as the analog/digital converter in the camera is 12-bit (except for the latest cameras like the Canon 40D and high-end Nikons, which have 14-bit A/D converters). The extra 4 or 2 bits in a so-called 16-bit image are not used; they are simply padding so the computer can handle whole bytes.

The number of bits has nothing to do with definition; it defines the number of steps between black and peak white in the image. A 12-bit image has 2^12 shades or levels of brightness between black and white (4,096 steps), while an 8-bit image has 2^8, or 256 shades or steps. This, by the way, is considerably more than the eye can discern.

If you have an image which requires considerable tone lightening in the shadows, say from underexposure, an 8-bit image will show posterizing, that is, areas or bands of tones with obvious demarcations between, because you're stretching the tone steps to cover a greater tonal range. A 12 or 14-bit image starts with many more steps, or levels, so can stand a lot more tone stretching without obvious posterizing.

Also, realize that the monitor you are viewing the image on is almost certainly an 8-bit device, unless you use a laptop or relatively inexpensive LCD monitor, in which case most laptop and LCD screens are 6-bit.

I have found that scanning B/W negatives can cause problems with 8-bit images, mainly because most scanners do not handle B/W negatives well if the Dmax (maximum density) approaches or exceeds the scanner limits. You should not take this situation to apply to color scans or digital images.

In short, PS Elements is absolutely fine for your images. And, if you shoot jpegs, they are all 8-bit anyway.

Colin